Ride On

I'm thinking of siliconing a piece of high density foam or rubber on the front side of my sump. It may have prevented the damage in the picture above. I don't like the looks of a protector or it's price or the potential case damage in the event of a hard hit. A new sump cover can be had for $147, half the price of some protectors.

When I was a kid (supposedly a long time ago) I switched out my front sprocket on my dirt bike for one that was one tooth smaller. You see, I had a buddy with a similarly fast bike, and I was looking for faster acceleration to consistently beat his @ss. So I stealthy upgraded to the smaller sprocket. A solo test ride confirmed this thing now screamed. Fast up shifts and wild acceleration. It was time to go ride with my unsuspecting buddy. Unbelievably, I was now getting smoked. Every time we accelerated. Every time. What seemed faster riding alone was actually an aural and seat-of-the-pants hoax. Riding together it was painfully obvious I made a horrible mistake, my bike now much slower, much to the amusement of my buddy. Getting roosted was my punishment for the rest of the riding day. My misfortune ended with the stock sprocket being reinstalled that evening. The Universe had tipped back into balance.

Oil began spurting out of the head, just below the exhaust pipe. I'm thinking this "hole in the head" contains some sort of pressure relief or check valve. Anybody know for sure? I just serviced the valves and I'm wondering if an oil port got blocked off during reassembly. Thanks!

$30 motorcycle battery from walmart will work just fine for a few years. On the other end of the spectrum is a $260 Earth-x lithium (quality) battery that will last as long as the bike. I've owned both, the lithium is in my airplane since 2018. Yuasa is way overpriced for what you get.

Here's my factory plugs at 22,500 miles. Easily could have gone longer but conveniently changed them out with stock plugs when I reset the valve clearances. 8 out of 12 valves were tight, several exhaust valves down to .005".

You guys make awesome landing gear btw. Don't ask how I know...

Nothing to do with bikes, but my previous employer's standard operating practice, and as written in our Crew Resource Manual, was to let the tires wear down through the first set Kevlar cord on the tires. Once the second, opposing cords were visible the tire had to be replaced. And this was on an airline passenger jet. FAA approved. The wear was never completely uniform around the tire. The Kevlar that would show would usually be silver dollar in size, maybe in a couple places around the tire. Most of the wear occurs from the tires spinning up from zero to 175 mph at touchdown. Seems odd for sure, but completely safe.

I tried a non-dampened front sprocket on my '15. The noise and vibration after the switch were terrible. I went back to the factory dampened front sprocket after just 10 miles. Much, much better. I also switched to Rotella synthetic oil. I was surprised that the shifting became smoother and the transmission a little less noisy overall. 22,000 miles on the bike now. Great bike. Still a keeper.

Managed to crack the oil pan without riding it or having the bike fall over... Wow.

FWIW, I have 12,000 miles my set of Road 5's. The center wear indicators are almost flush with the remaining tread. I've got a new set of 5's ready to be mounted once I get a bead breaking slide hammer delivered. My tire life may have been helped by lots of cool weather, cool tire, Minnesota road miles. I was also surprised that the last 3/32" of wear lasted 5,000 miles. I almost replaced them prior to a 3,800 mile trip this spring but I'm happy I didn't!

$5. Nice! Sure beats $200.

Ram offers a nice wireless cell phone charging mount for sale but I kinda choked on their $200 price tag. Besides, I already had an older X-Grip that I had been using for the last couple years and though maybe I could convert mine instead. So I did. For less than $30. It was pretty easy. I first removed the Ram emblem (sticker) from the center of the X-Grip. I then siliconed a fast wireless charging pad in its place. The one I used was 5mm thin pad so it didn't interfere with the X-Grip's holding ability, even when using a waterproof cell phone case. Finally I used a compatable "fast" wireless charging plug to insert into the cigarette lighter. I used Yamabond to seal the USB connections for a water proof fit. I also used Yamabond to seal the top of the wireless charger's bezel to make sure that it's case is water tight. 3,900 miles later, and a trip half way across the country and back, I can report that this mod worked great! I used Google Maps the entire time on full brightness and my phone (SGS9+) still received a wireless quick charge through a water proof case. I will note that I've seen some reports of cell phones being damaged by vibration (or rain/water damage?) from being mounted on the handlebars but that has not been my experience with my Galaxy S9+. 14,000+ miles (with and without a water proof case) and it still works like new. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07FM8R7J1?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B08CBFD5ZV?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title

If you're up for a small project, here's a really effective pannier option for a little more than $100. https://www.tracer900.net/topic/8466-so-i-made-my-own-luggage-brackets/page/2/?tab=comments#comment-103920

I've used kitchen aluminum foil for years. Cheap and throw away when done.

It's well known in the aviation world, where the pilot controls the fuel/air mixture, that lean of peak operation (lean of peak exhaust gas temperature (EGT)) results in a cooler and a more efficient running engine. The maximum cylinder pressure and cylinder head temperatures occurs at peak EGT (14.7:1), but we're prohibited from running aviation engines there, (5,000 foot elevations and below) even though that's where the most horsepower is made. Instead, and at a slight horsepower penalty, these engines are required to run at a minimum of 50 degrees lean of peak, or 50 degrees rich of peak, but never at peak EGT. Many aviation engines don't have a balanced fuel delivery system though, and can't run smoothly lean of peak, so those engines are limited to operating at the more inefficient rich of peak operations. For years I flew behind a turbocharged, 520 cubic inch Continential. Once reaching crusing altitude, I'd push the throttle wide open while simultaneously pulling the mixture control through peak EGT and immediately leaner by another 75 degrees or so, just before the engine ran rough. This saved about 3 gallons per hour compared to running 50 degrees rich of peak, all while making the same horsepower and at cooler cylinder head and exhaust gas temperatures. You would literally see the immediate temperature drop on your instruments as you go lean of peak, and also relative to operating at 50 degrees rich of peak. Operating lean of peak was actually learned in WWII, when bombers were trying to extract every last drop of fuel efficiency to make it back to their airfield. Back to present day... On takeoff and climb through 5,000 feet (as opposed to crusing altitude outlined above) a different strategy is used, and we are required to run the mixture full rich at full throttle. Though maximum power is available at peak EGT, operating there is prohibited by all aviation engine manufactures due to the risk of preignition and excessive cylinder head temperatures. Running full rich is for engine cooling purposes and insurance against preignition even though there's a horsepower penalty. Efficiency here is terrible. In my case I'd burn 34 gallons per hour at takeoff. That compares to 15.3 gallons per hour at cruise, set lean of peak (approximately 70% horsepower). That's the aviation world. I suspect the engines in our Yamahas are set up similarly. If so, then under wide open throttle Yamaha mapped the engine to run rich, at a small horsepower penalty, for reliability purposes. An ECU tune can get that performance penalty back but, the question is, at what cost to long term reliability?

Used FJ09 engines can be had on eBay for about $1,500.

The CP3's have been out quite a few years now. Not a dead engine yet from 87 octane. 91 octane seems to cure a "problem" that does not exist in the CP3. I ride at near sea level elevations and sometimes on hot days, with a passenger, running hard, on 87 octane. Stock engine. No knock. As long as the combustion chamber temperatures (piston, head, valves, spark plug, carbon deposits) remains below the autoignition temperature of the fuel then there's no preignition, no knock. Compression ratio, timing advance, air/fuel ratio, spark plug heat range, density altitude, intake air temperature, engine cooling and exhaust efficiency all effect combustion chamber temperatures. Mess up on any combination of these and you can get preignition, on any grade of pump gas. In a stock engine though, the experience of many, and the test of time has shown 87 octane won't harm it. If it does, where are the dead engines?

Agreed. The real issue is engine knocking (preignition). If your engine is knocking you need a higher octane fuel. If it isn't, you don't.

Don't forget... the Owners Manual also calls for, "After extensive tests, only the tires listed below have been approved for this model by Yamaha". And those tires are, drum roll please... the stock tires. There's a lot of other b.s. stated in the Owners Manual, another such item is chain tension requirements. No doubt one can adhere to every statement made in the Owners Manual, but life experience often leads one to acceptable, even better, alternatives.

These engines don't burn down or suffer any ill effects from using 87 octane. If they did you'd see threads and pictures of destroyed engines and burnt pistons. Where are the dead engines? There are none. If your engine doesn't knock, then you don't need higher octane, regardless of what the owners manual says. It's that simple. And high octane gasoline doesn't help your engine last any longer. Not one mile longer. If there's no knocking then you're getting a normal combustion event. I've got 13,000 miles on my FJ-09, mostly using 87 octane. I use non-ethonol premium gasoline late season to run the ethanol out of the tank so it's ready for winter storage. The added benefit of using 87 octane is that it saves me about $0.80 per gallon. I can use that savings to buy premium beer instead.

I installed the Scottoiler X System and, so far, have run it about 2,000 miles. Other than two slack adjustments (the chain is new), I haven't touched the chain since. It's always got a fresh oiled appearance to it. I’ve topped off the oil reservoir once. I'm pretty happy with this set up. Riding with a chain drive couldn't be any easier now. The chain links are a little grungy. I was using their red, or higher temperature oil, as it got cold and the riding season ended. It normally looks a little cleaner. The rim hasn't been cleaned in about 800 miles or so.

Thanks Nevada! No worries about the aluminum brackets. Fatuige life is a function of the extent of the flexing, times the number of cycles. I'd expect these brackets to outlast several motorcycles. (The two aluminum bars holding the wings on my airplane are made from 1" wide by 1/8" thick 6061T6 aluminum and are under significantly more stress!)

Here's one of the completed bags...

Nevada72 had a great idea here and I decided to build my own set of panniers following his lead. You can too. Nothing here is particularly difficult and the end result seems to be extremely durable. I've been using Yamaha's 39L top case and a 40L dry bag strapped to the passenger seat. That works fine, but the dry bag isn't an option when riding with a passenger. The number of times I'd actually need panniers is close to zero, so spending $900 on a factory bags wasn't likely to happen. With the cost dropping to $130 though, that equation changes. These bags add 29L of storage capacity per side and appear to be completely water and dust proof. I've sealed the screws that penetrate the bags with Yamahabond to keep them both air and water tight. I also cut down the bags exterior webbing flush with the rest of the bag where the mounting brackets attach (using a wood chisel). This provides a flat surface for the brackets to be bolted to. Rather than use JB Weld to make the tapered wedges that fit into the stock luggage bracket I used West System epoxy mixed with strands of carbon fiber I had lying around. The aluminum angle it's cured to was drilled to allow the mix to harden through and around the aluminum angle. It's bulletproof. If I'd do it again through I'd use epoxy putty that's kneeded together to mix and cure. This would be less messy and easier to form. Saran Wrap allows mixture to both form to, and harden, in the luggage bracket and allow it's removal when cured. So for about 8 hours of my time and $130 I've now got another option to haul luggage around should the need arise. With snow on the roads, I just need to wait until spring to try them out.